Two years ago, after a long journey shared in some fashion by many others, we decided to adopt a child. It seems that the endless evenings on the town, enjoying great food, travels to faraway lands at will and not having to save money for college were not enough for us.
Living with — or without — kids in your life isn’t a right or wrong choice. I think we were looking for lives slightly more complicated. The decision to adopt a child from Africa was about as complicated as you can get.
Whether to adopt a child, notwithstanding the road that leads a family to decide from where to adopt, is a complicated story for everyone. Whatever path puts a child who truly needs a home into a family that sincerely needs one is a good one.
One of the exercises prospective parents get to do in international adoption prep is to try to get a picture of how your child might see him or herself in your circle of friends. People are born colorblind, but it isn’t often a condition that persists.
We were given a tray of differently colored beads, each one signifying a unique ethnic background. Our son was a purple bead surrounded by two green ones (Mom and Dad). As we began to fill in the circle with all of our friends, co-workers, caregivers, doctors and neighbors, we eventually found a rainbow of colors on the table.
Yet there was only one purple bead.
We started to panic a little. All of the fears that you can have as a parent about making your child feel accepted and part of a real family, let alone a community, begin to shape how you look at the world. We started looking for preschools with diversity where he would feel comfortable, and we started paying attention to people who would be involved in our lives. We were lucky. Living in Southern California made the task pretty easy.
